SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I can't post this on the wayward board because it will smack of being insulting. I sincerely don't mean it to be insulting. I really want to know some information.

I have a hypothesis that people generally act in accordance with internal moral guidelines and rules. I was brought up Catholic, which might have something to do with it.

Here's my question. Why would the affair partner pursue someone else's spouse, knowing full well that the spouse is married? I mean, they know that there will certainly be enormous pain when the other spouse finds out. Assuming for a moment that the wife in a heterosexual marriage is the wandering spouse, the affair partner may also be taking his life in his hands. Is that it, the thrill, like skydiving? How does the affair partner morally or ethically justify his or her actions to the face in the mirror?

Here is my two cents.

Some people like the thrill of the chase. It’s what motivates them to go after a married person (or someone in a committed relationship).

Some people see the AP as interesting and kind and caring with their spouse and the AP decides that is what/who they want.

Others just don’t care and will go after anyone anytime any place. They have no morals or values or ethics or integrity or anything. They are that much of a lowlife.

The AP will tell themselves whatever they need to — just to justify their poor choices. The OW in my case knew my H was married - but pursued him anyway. And he lied to her to keep the affair going by telling her he was D me. The ego boost she provided kept the affair alive for far too long.

In the end it comes down to people telling themselves things like "I deserve to be happy" and "we are just friends" and "I’m not doing anything wrong" or whatever lie they use to justify the affair. On both sides.

I’ve seen the game. I’ve been approached far too often. I would just laugh it off b/c these guys were just fishing. Looking to see if I was one of those married women who would engage in an affair. They didn’t like me or love me or care about me — it was obvious what it was. NSA sex.

Although I have long since renounced Catholic belief systems, having been raised in the faith myself, I frequently wonder how much that early conditioning has fundamentally shaped my own moral compass.

I tend to view human nature a bit differently. While I agree that some individuals are guided by a consistent set of internal moral rules, many simply are not. Broadly speaking, this leaves us with two distinct groups of people when it comes to infidelity. First, there are those whose internal moral framework is genuinely broken or absent, meaning they do not view betrayal as inherently wrong—often as a result of deep-seated trauma, profound insecurity, or pure naivety. Second, there are those who acknowledge that cheating is wrong in principle, yet actively choose not to abide by their own standards, instead relying on self-serving rationalisations, romantic delusions, or simple flaws of character to bridge the gap.

Addressing your query about whether the affair partner is drawn in by the thrill of danger, akin to skydiving, it is worth noting that the affair partner rarely faces severe real-world consequences, particularly if they are single. In workplace affairs, the absolute worst outcome is typically being asked to move departments or, at most, losing a job. If they are married, it may well fracture their own home life, but physical danger remains exceedingly rare. From the thousands of accounts I have read online, I would estimate that fewer than five percent end with the betrayed spouse physically assaulting or directly confronting the affair partner. Beyond a brief verbal telling-off that barely registers, the affair partner usually escapes unscathed. In that sense, skydiving is a remarkably fitting comparison: they get an adrenaline rush knowing that, statistically speaking, they will land safely and face minimal fallout.

As for how affair partners live with themselves, the psychological justifications vary greatly from person to person. Speaking from my own past, when I was sixteen I briefly found myself in the role of the affair partner. While my youth and complete lack of maturity offer context rather than an excuse, my thought process at the time was likely typical of many who enter these dynamics. I convinced myself that we were meant to be together and that she was trapped with someone who was entirely wrong for her. Crucially, I reasoned that I owed her partner nothing because he was not my friend. I seized upon every available excuse to justify an action that was morally abhorrent.

As I matured, I fully grasped the gravity of what I had done, though I still maintain that being the third party—while unquestionably wrong—does not compare to the profound betrayal committed by the wandering spouse, unless, of course, one betrays a friend or family member. In most cases, the third party is not breaking a direct vow or betraying someone to whom they owe explicit loyalty. As a side note, life eventually handed me my own bitter taste of cosmic justice many years later, though by that point the moral lesson had already been deeply ingrained.

I have a hypothesis that people generally act in accordance with internal moral guidelines and rules.

Oh, if that was true imagine how peaceful, prosperous and happy the world might be.

Most people act in accordance with their own self-interest. They are, IMHO, generally selfish and myopic. And I think the reasons for it are rather simple. Being human is hard. Living in society is hard. Identify, philosophy, psychology, finances, relationships, careers... all of it... survival is fucking hard.

I think Ayn Rand summarized it fairly well.

"As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation - or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt,
Like a ball and chain in the place where your mind's wings should have grown."

Why would the affair partner pursue someone else's spouse, knowing full well that the spouse is married?

I think sometimes it’s vanity. "He/She was willing to risk it all for me" is quite the ego boost.

I have a hypothesis that people generally act in accordance with internal moral guidelines and rules.

Not always

My AP got off on "stealing" me from my husband (sicko. Uegh!) I think he either didn't consider that another male could be aggressive towards him upon finding out, or he figured he was safe because we live in different states... Idk my H has friends in low places. Not that I would ever know if something did happen because he... Is blocked

When I was an AP for married men in my youth, I rationalized that I wasn't home wrecking; if the married man was having an affair, it was because the home was already wrecked. I thought that if their Ws had just taken better care of them, they wouldn't have gone looking elsewhere. I also wrote off my responsibility to not enable their infidelity with the reasoning that I wasn't the one who had agreed to monogamy with anyone; it wasn't my obligation to be faithful to their wives... Lotta mental gymnastics there.

Just going to point out that Ayn Rand was a proud serial cheater, as were the "heroes" in her stories. I guess that means that even if you have a strong moral code, if it is disconnected from human nature it won’t do anything to guard you from infidelity and it’s horrible consequences.

CatholicAF here. WH raised Southern Baptist.

Yet...he had a LTA w/a married woman.

Oversimplified - thrill of the chase. Harder the chase - bigger the thrill.

Religion - stripped down it all Good vs Evil.

WH chose Evil because frankly it was more fun.

Banality of Responsibility vs Cheap Thrill Fun.

He chose poorly.

I am assuming the scenario is the AP is not married?

In my scenario both me and my AP were married to other people. So in my case I was an AP pursing a married man, I don’t think I am all that different than your scenario.

I think in general terms most affairs happen on a slippery slope. The majority happen in the workplace. Conversations that are too personal can build past a friendship into feelings of attraction and then people tend to start justifying it because it feels good.

For me, I thought I had good values. In reality, I just always did what I thought was expected of me with no deep meaningful relationship with those values I was executing. In those cases it’s easier to throw them out the window basically making crazy justifications and performing no real self examination. For me I think some of this was easy because I was also very depressed and when you no longer care about yourself or what happens to you , a lot goes out the window.

But in most cases, I think when one is cheating, they don’t have a good relationship with themselves and they have tapped into a big validation dispenser where not only are they getting a lot of validation from the person it you get to pretend to yourself that you are this awesome desirable person.

I also think that some people get extra validation because they believe they are so special they can take what they want.

I generally think my ap cheated just to get more sex (and the validation that comes with that). Some AP’s don’t mind the source and will take what they can get.

There is no explaining the ethics. Either there aren’t any, or they talked themselves out of them for something else. In the case of a single AP, they don’t really have anything to lose and it’s safe to say there isn’t a strong relationship to their integrity.

As a BS, you are not allowed to open threads in the WS forum. Doing so is a serious breach of guidelines. And yet, BSes can't answer your question because of lack of experience, unless they've actually talked to aps about this.

In the I Can Relate forum, you'll find a thread called something like, 'BS Questions for WSes'. Of course, WSes aren't necessarily able to answer your question, unless they actively pursued married aps.

So ... what's your goal with this question? How will an accurate answer help you?

*****

Ayn Rand adjusted her philosophy to enable her to pursue whatever she wanted when she wanted it and still think of herself as a moral person. I have some respect for her - not much, but some. I can't imagine what she went through as a child, and I can understand that trauma has multiple effects, some of which are unknowable, but she strikes me as a person who defines 'over-entitled.'

I cannot speak for waywards. I do have a good idea what happened with my fWW, and understanding it has helped her grow.

I also worked in search and rescue, so indulge me on the moral compass analogy. When navigating with a compass, you have to start by getting a bearing and start to walk that direction. Your bearing may be a far off hilltop or a big tree far in the distance. If you remain on that heading, with the landmark in mind, you will stay on course. But the more you just look at the steps ahead of you, instead of frequently checking on that bearing landmark, the more off course you can get. And if you loose your map, it does not matter whether you have a compass, you will get lost.

My fWW never took a bearing on her life. She did not have a moral goal. (Don't get me wrong, she is not an evil person) Mostly, she walked through life trying to jump from one rock to another, trying not to get wet so to speak. So she would take the path of least resistance. And when you are not looking up, but always looking at your feet, you don't see the other people around you, or the landmark that you are trying to get to. Just the next easiest step that does not cost energy or strength. She had no goal other than survival. Her path to infidelity started long before she came to a place where she cheated to make herself feel better for a moment. She made other bad decisions long before becoming a wayward. She told convenient lies when telling the truth would be uncomfortable. Both to herself and others including me. Then it became a pattern with her. It was not because she set out to be a liar, she did not like discomfort. Before long, lying became what she did, and she did not even recognize it as lying. She could tell herself she was sparing me from discomfort. Then it snowballed.

Why choose another's spouse? They are just another rock to step on in the path of least resistance. To my fWW, it was not that these people mattered as people or that they were a path to getting where she wanted to go. She had no path, they just were rocks to jump on that were easier than dealing with real life. She could make fantasies about them and their relationship that seemed better than the struggles of every day life. On and on, until she was so far off course she was lost. If it looked like she had a goal or path in mind, it was an act. She was lost.

Afterall a Wayward is defined by the Miriam dictionary as: a wayward person is someone who is stubborn, difficult to control, and turns away from proper conduct, rules, or expected paths to follow their own unpredictable or impulsive desires.

I hope that helps.

Transgression is the answer you seek. Because it is wrong, because they are "getting one over" on their spouse and sometimes the OBS too, because they have something they are not supposed to have and are getting away with it. That is part of the attraction.

You can see it in the language and behavior. Being chosen over the spouse. Being important enough that someone is willing to violate their marriage for you. Knowing something the spouse does not know. Having access to a secret part of someone’s life that is hidden from the person who is supposed to know them best. Often they do not even want the AP permanently. The point is not necessarily to have the person. The point is to have the transgressive experience.

Once the affair starts, they can manufacture whatever moral permission they need afterward. The marriage was already bad, the spouse was not taking care of them, they were basically separated, I do not owe the spouse anything, we are just friends, they were going to cheat with someone anyway. You can build a justification for almost anything if you start with the conclusion you want.

So I think asking how they morally justify it may almost put the cart before the horse. The moral violation is not merely an obstacle they have to overcome. For some people, it is part of the reward.